Massive police raid in Wilmington nets 14 sex offenders

With a helicopter gunship overhead and drug-sniffing dogs on the ground, about 100 law enforcement officers swarmed a Wilmington neighborhood overnight and arrested 14 registered sex offenders for various parole violations. | PHOTOS

Joe Martinez, a parole administrator with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said a search of the sex offenders' motel rooms and apartments turned up pornography, cocaine, marijuana and an unauthorized knife.

"What'll happen is that the sex offenders will be placed in custody, and on a parole hold," he said. "So even if they had a million dollars, they cannot bail out of jail for a while."

Dubbed Operation Safe Haven, the parole sweep involved more than a dozen federal, state and local law enforcement agencies banding together to check on 60 sex offenders clustered within three blocks near the twin Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The area is bordered by Sanford, East Anaheim and Pioneer Avenues, as well as G Street. Flint and Pioneer Avenues go down the middle of the three blocks.

About 40 of the sex offenders gave their address as Harbor Inn, a motel on 716 Flint Avenue.

"Prior to 2006, you didn't have this clustering of sex offenders," Martinez said. "When Jessica's law was passed, it prohibited any sex offenders from residing within 2,000 feet of any K-12 school or park, and there's not a lot of areas that comply with those law requirements."

Around 11 p.m. Tuesday, teams of parole agents, probation officers, federal marshals, police officers, immigration officers, social workers from the county Department of Children and Family Services, and several K-9 teams entered the sex offenders' motel rooms and apartments.

They rousted the occupants, some of whom had been asleep, tied their wrists with plastic zip ties, frisked them, escorted them outside, and then searched through their things.

"Zero tolerance," a parole agent told one of the teams searching for banned items at the motel.

DCFS's multi-agency response team was summoned after boys, ages 3 and 4, were found living in one of the apartments with their mother and her boyfriend, who was convicted decades ago of attempting to rape an adult woman.

The social workers found no signs the children were being mistreated and decided to let them continue living in the apartment with their mother while an investigation is ongoing. The boyfriend was found in possession of pornography and taken into custody.

Operation Safe Haven comes several weeks after residents held a town hall meeting to express concern over the high concentration of sex offenders in their midst, and rising crime.

According to the California Megan's Law website, there are 179 sex offenders in the Wilmington ZIP code.

Martinez said the community became alarmed after a man exposed himself to two girls walking to school in July. The man remains at large.

Aside from the CDCR, other agencies that participated in the raid were the US Marhsalls Office; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Bureau of Immigration and Customs; SWAT teams from the state prisons in Lancaster and Chino; and police, parole and probation officers from different cities in Los Angeles County.